A wide variety of drain cleaning tools are known in the art. One type of tool is a drum-type drain cleaning tool which uses a rotatable drum in which a drain cleaning cable or “snake” is stored. Upon rotation of the drum, the cable is dispensed from, or retracted into, the drum. Such tools are known in manually driven forms or in powered versions.
Manually driven drum-type drain cleaning tools include a relatively large number of components which increase complexity and assembly costs. In addition, many of the components are metal and thus lead to a potential for scratching or otherwise damaging furnishings such as bathroom fixtures during use of the drain cleaning tool. Although many drain cleaning tools are satisfactory in various respects, a need remains for an improved tool which addresses the noted concerns.